Effective Crisis Communication Chapters 9 and 12

Chapter 9 from Effective Crisis Communication

Chapter 9 brought up some interesting points about the importance of learning from failure. Too often organizations try to avoid failure all together and do not view it as a learning experience. Some lessons can only be learned from failure and by figuring out what went wrong and why. According to the chapter, there are several ways to learn from failure. The first way is to learn directly from a failure that was experienced by the organization. The second way is to learn vicariously from a failure which was experienced by another organization. Another way organizations can learn is from a process called “unlearning”. With unlearning, organizations change or “unlearn” their previous behaviors that are outdated due to changes in the environment.

If organizations and their leadership learn from failure and environmental changes, they may have these opportunities:

· “Opportunity 1: Organizations should treat failure as an opportunity to recognize a potential crisis to prevent a similar crisis in the future.”(p.150)
· “Opportunity 2: Organizations can avoid crises by learning from the failures and crises of other organizations.” (p. 150)
· “Opportunity 3: Organizational training and planning should emphasize the preservation of previous learning in order to make organizational memory a priority.” (p.150)
· “Opportunity 4: Organizations must be willing to unlearn outdated or ineffective procedures if they are to learn better crisis management strategies.” (p.150)

The authors used Johnson & Johnson and the Tylenol crisis as an example of failure. According to them, Johnson & Johnson handled the crisis well, but did not learn from failure because they did not handle future crises with the same speed and effectiveness. This brings me to my first discussion question:
Do you agree with the authors’ claims?

I do not necessarily agree because while they may not have handled future crises as well, they could not have learned nothing from the Tylenol crisis. Tylenol is still a trusted brand and Johnson & Johnson is still a trusted company, so the future crises they had to handle were not handled completely wrong. The way they handled the future crises may have been due to several facts, such as a change in leadership and a change in public relations practitioners working for the company.

Chapter 12 from Effective Crisis Communication

Chapter 12 discussed how to return to business again after a crisis. Depending on the crisis and the severity of it, an organization may be able to return to business as usual or the organization may have to return to a “new normal”. The case studies in the chapter discussed how the organizations could return to a “new normal” after a crisis and the one thing they had in common was the fact that the organizations were committed to their stakeholders.

Four ways for organizations to have effective crisis responses are:

“Opportunity 1: Organizations that set strong ethical standards before crises can create opportunities for renewal.” (p. 186)
“Opportunity 2: Organizations that emphasize developing strong stakeholder relationships prior to a crisis have opportunities to experience renewal after one occurs.” (p. 186)
“Opportunity 3: Organizations that focus on moving beyond crises rather than shifting blame or escaping blame are more likely to experience renewal.” (p. 186)
“Opportunity 4: Organizations that focus on effective crisis communication strategies have better opportunities to create renewal.” (p. 186)

Now for my discussion questions:
Can you think of an example of an organization that had a crisis and during the crisis information about the organization’s poor ethical decisions prior to the crisis was made public? What organization was it? What was the end result?

What other important factors, other than commitment to stakeholders, would be important in handling a crisis and in helping an organization return to a “new normal” after a crisis?

P.S. I apologize for the formatting issues. I typed this is Word first and I just could not get the formatting to look as pretty as it did in Word.